Air date: November 18, 1960
Newlyweds Don and Pat Carter (William Shatner and Patricia Breslin) experience car trouble en route to their honeymoon, and are temporarily struck in Ridgeview, Ohio. They decide to have lunch at the Busy Bee Cafe while they wait for the repairs to finish, and discover that their booth has a fortune telling machine with a devil's head dubbed the "Mystic Seer" on the table, which answers yes or no questions for a penny. Don sarcastically asks the Seer if anything exciting happens in Ridgeview. The response on the card reads: "It is quite possible"
Don then asks the "Mystic Seer" if he is going to get a promotion at work. The card says that it has been decided in his favor. When Don calls the office, he discovers that the Seer was right. Because of this initial success, Don starts asking the Seer more and more questions. Pat begins to realize that Don is taking the Seer too seriously. Based on the Seer's predictions, Don believes it will be unsafe to leave the diner until after 3 p.m. Pat convinces him to leave a few minutes before 3, but she and Don are almost struck by a speeding car while crossing the street, just as they find that nearby clock reads 3 p.m. After they calm down, Don wants to go back to the cafe for more answers. However, a pair of women are sitting at their booth, so Don and Pat wait at the front counter.
Pat wants proof that the Seer is legitimate, pointing out that it was Don who brought up the matter of precisely 3 p.m. After reclaiming their booth, Don immediately asks the Seer more questions. One of the things he wants to know is whether their car will be fixed by the end of the day. The Seer answers in the affirmative, and as if on cue, the mechanic steps into the diner to tell Don that his car is fixed.
The breaking point comes when Don wants the Seer to tell him where they're going to live, asking the device every conceivable "yes or no" question to get the information. Pat tries in vain to break the spell the Seer has over her husband, and after a persuasive speech, Don apologizes for getting caught up in his superstitions, then announces directly to the Seer that they're leaving to go and do what they please. After their cautious but uneventful exit to their car and their drive out of town, a slightly older couple, noticeably beleaguered and distraught, enter the diner. Approaching the same Seer Don and Pat encountered, the man first asks the Seer if they can ask more questions. After receiving an affirmative answer, the man asks a series of questions, including "Do you think we might leave Ridgeview today?". The couple is obviously deflated by the answer to this question and the others and remain trapped by their obsession with the Seer's "counsel", unlike the now-free Don and Pat.
Nick of Tropes:
- An Aesop:
- Don't let superstition control every aspect of your life.
- Fear is a very powerful thing, but only if you let it control you. It's up to you to make your own life on your own terms.
- Everytown, America: Aside from the Mystic Seer in the Busy Bee Cafe, Ridgeview is an otherwise quaint and friendly little American town.
- Here We Go Again!: As the Carters walk out of the diner, another couple, older and ragged, walks in and begins frantically consulting the Seer for its answers.
- Large Ham: Don definitely has his moments. It's par for the course when you're played by William Shatner.
- Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Don carries one with him at all times, as well as a Four-Leaf Clover, to show how superstitious he is.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: According to writer Richard Matheson, it's ambiguous as to whether the Mystic Seer actually is telling the future, or whether Don is simply interpreting a series of coincidences as evidence that the predictions were correct.
- As for the Seer's actual abilities, it could be argued that the Seer did predict the future as it was meant to, or doesn't actually tell the future and was designed to trap people with its answers (which would be a lot of trouble for a few pennies), or that it's only ability was to make you think it make accurate predictions, or it could've just been an ordinary machine whose seemingly accurate predictions were a series of improbable coincidences.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Don offhandedly questions the Seer if anything exciting happens in Ridgeview. Needless to say, a lot happens, more than he could possibly imagine...
- Screw Destiny: The moral in a nutshell, as Don decides to not let his life be run by the predictions of a machine, unlike the couple at the end of the episode.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Sort of. The Seer appears to control one's actions as it gains their trust.
- Shadow Archetype: In the end, another couple approaches the Mystic Seer and ask it whether they may leave the town. They are implied to be future versions of Don and Pat, if both of them were superstitious enough to resign themselves to the Seer.
- Women Are Wiser: Pat is far more skeptical of the Mystic Seer's supposed "powers", and repeatedly urges Don to stop obsessing over it. In the end, her persistence and wisdom get through to him and they leave Ridgeview for their honeymoon. It's subverted with the woman in the couple at the end, who is just as trapped by superstition as her husband.
